fun with pasta

spaghetti. enough said.

you think he might need braces?

stuffing. his. face.

please note the finger IN the nose

this is great! we should do this more often!

i am not so sure

i certainly don't consider myself a highly political person, or a political person by any means for that matter. to be completely honest i don't think politics will ever change the world in any tremendously significant direction, unless that direction is supremely negative. just one of the many downsides of being a diehard cynic. along those lines, i do believe that there is a line in this commercial that is the most absurd thing i have ever heard said about fatherhood.



while i fully agree with the statement "to be a great dad is the most important job in a man's life" i think the line "all it takes is a few minutes of your time" is absolutely ludicrous. perhaps joel osteen has figured out how to be "your best father now" in only 5 minutes a day, but in my world trying to be a good dad is the hardest and most time consuming thing i have ever done, and it is something i fail miserably at most of the time. i suppose something is better than nothing, but my temptation a lot of days is to check out, to pull my phone out of my pocket and distract myself, to retreat into a world totally focused on me. but like a friend of mine once told me, when you have two kids, the lie that life is about you is officially dead. either you own up to that reality, or you sit around and write blogs about youtube videos you have seen.

christmas night

christmas night was at the curry's. the last leg of the christmas marathon included more food, more family, more fun.

ryder puts the vulcan death pinch on papa's nose while great grandpa herold looks on approvingly at his young padawan

the inflatables were quite a hit. isaac loved making the snowman dance by pulling on the string.

showing off the new christmas digs

ryder with grandma chris, while ryan photobombs in the background

i resent this bib, but i would rather hear the truth from somebody i love

cool dudes hang together

clear the roads, and the floors

a little "jumpy, jumpy" on the top bunk with papa

christmas morning

the festivities continued on christmas morning at the menconi's.

ryder immediately found his stocking, and kept repeating "ball"

i feel like we just took this picture last night.

the aforementioned ball kept him occupied for a good part of the morning

somebody is beginning to understand the whole present thing

ryder with the sport stuff, and isaac with the art stuff. just about right.

"ryder, this is how you make a carpet angel."

in an effort to make the morning a bit more entertaining, i brought the tigger outfit home from work. i figured it would be funny to hand out presents as isaac's favorite pooh character. turns out it was a big hit with ryder, isaac cried and kept signing "all done".

the new pooh train was a big hit with both boys. even though it was given to ryder, isaac threw an absolute fit when it was time to let go of it for nap time.

isaac admires his own handiwork.

we could not open the presents quickly enough.

another big hit, with all the boys, was the thomas fort

isaac ran over to autumn's house to see what santa left for her.

still keeping the christmas cheer

christmas eve part 2

christmas eve night we went to grammy and grandpy's for the traditional spaghetti feed. food and people. two things the boys love.

ryder got into it early with the apple.

grandpy showed isaac the musical christmas book he had recently got at a garage sale

not everybody gets presents at the table

not sure how many times this picture has been taken, but add one more to the total

the bib reads "that's it, i'm going to grandma's!"

the gifts are given to individuals, but quickly become communal property

the modern etch-a-sketch. kids with their new fangled toys these days.

grauntie is trying to tickle the dessert out of him. fortunately it did not work.

ryder asks archie for another candy cane

isaac signing "candy" with both hands. we're pretty sure he was asking for twice as much.

both of them are always taking something off the tree

you can always tell when somebody is standing next to the picture taker to get the boys attention. in this case, slightly to the right.

"...and to all a goodnight!"

christmas eve part 1

at noon on christmas eve, a local church had a pretty cool deal going on with a live petting zoo with all sorts of animals so we took the boys over. they were pretty amped on all the animals, but for some reason the pig was especially exciting.

not sure you can see it, but that cage housed a bunny that was 6 months old and weighed like 14 pounds. no joke.

there were also some pretty huge goats.

we are thinking of moving to a farm.

lots of purell

ryder is starting to hang out with some real jackasses

we are going to pretend they were looking for the Christ child. in reality, they were probably looking for some of the baby turtles.

oh, there they are

everyone looks good in red

isaac the gymnast

the other night before bed time, isaac needed a diaper change. we didn't have any his size (5) downstairs, so we put him in one of ryder's (size 3). it saved us a trip upstairs and plus they are cheaper so we figured why not. what we didn't figure is that they would make isaac look like he was wearing bikini briefs. he then decided he would spend a good part of the evening doing hand stands, afterwards standing up, saying "ta-da" and clapping vigorously for himself. just a typical night around the montgomery house.

the look

the stand
(please note that ryder is smiling in the back ground. he has gotten to the point that does that pretty much anytime you point a camera in his direction.)

take two on both counts